Dear Jim Sheldon,
May I ask WHY you are not comfortable with using the U-Boot environment? Usually it's a very convenient place to store configuration data, and a pretty reliable one (especially when you use redundant environment).
We're not concerned about u-boot's environment not being reliable, we just want the ability to completely erase the nand without worrying about losing essential data (like a MAC address). I suppose we could work around that area of the flash if/when erasing the nand is necessary, but then we would have to keep track of each environment variable that could be stored there.
That is exactly my concern as well.
I have seen _way_ more cases where data in EEPROM got lost than data loss from the environment.
That's discouraging, do you have any advice for where to store the MAC outside of nand, and not in an EEPROM?
I cannot second that, we have always stored environment and vital product data in EEPROM (AT24C64). But VPD (includes MAC adresses) is never writen by u-boot; only read and made into respective setenv() variables. Check boards/emk/common/vpd.c for an idea.
Greetings, Reinhard